12/25/1999

Note: This started out being your typical “Xmas sucks” post, and you will see, turned out very differently. I’m a little uncomfortable posting this, not necessarily because it’s too personal, but because the memory is one I haven’t really shared before to so many people, not to mention my god-awful attempt at using big words to make me sound all literary and shit. I am not sure about the accuracy regarding dates — it could have been a couple of years earlier or later. The memory is 100% real, however.

I have always dreaded December 25th, but I used to be a big fan of Christmas, growing up.

Okay, let me back up here. In my household, we always had our festivities on Christmas Eve. My extended family would show up, and there would be a giant dinner. We’d open up our presents. Grandma would make me play “Sonata in D Major” or whatever on the piano and everyone over the age of forty would beam as everyone else rolled their eyes. Christmas Eve was alright, especially in the earlier years. We were all happy.

Then Christmas Day would come. And the yelling would start. Here’s the thing about my parents arguing at each other — they had, no, have, horrible screaming matches. And of course, they would yell at each other in Chinese, and my Chinese was never that great, so I would run to my room and hide while foreign, angry Chinese words permeated the entire house. Some phrases I did, recognize, though. “Mother-in-law.” “Divorce.” Something would break, a red ornament taken off the tree, shattering against the tile floor. That’s what it sounded like, anyway.

I go to my sister’s room. Her face is flush white, her eyes glazed over. A month from now, her bipolar schizophrenia would relapse and she would run away from home for two weeks, to show up later at a hospital in Los Angeles. She’s completely detached from reality by now, and I know this and my dad knows this but he won’t admit it and I don’t care, because I wanna get the fuck out of this damn house.

Me: “Let’s go, jie.”
Her: “Where?”
Me: “Anywhere.”

We are silent as we hop in her car and we drive across the Bay Bridge to San Francisco. It’s typical San Francisco weather. Clear skies, 65 degrees. There is no traffic. “What’s the holidays without J&B?” asks a billboard. I don’t know why that billboard sticks out in my mind. It just does. We drive a little more and we get to Union Square, with its Christmas displays and giant tree with hundreds of ornaments. There are cars parked everywhere but there’s no traffic and no one else is walking around, except for a homeless woman here or an old child-molester looking type there.

Her: “Where do you wanna go?”
Me: “The Hyatt has a Christmas display. Let’s go there.”

More walking. We pass a department store that is playing “I’m Dreaming of a White Christmas.” I’ve never associated Christmas with snow. Just one more thing I can’t relate to.

We walk up a flight of stairs into the swank hotel and peer inside one of the displays. It’s a miniature railroad, complete with miniature town and tiny Victorian people. The town is completely decked out — there’s a general store and an ice skating rink, with little plastic people having snowfights and having plastic family dinners with plastic parents that don’t call the police on each other. I mean, there’s a group caroling. How fucking cliche is that? They look happy, even if I can’t see their faces and that they were probably made by little Chinese girls making twelve cents an hour.

I look over to my sister and her eyes are glazed over still and she’s lost. Lost like always, yes, but for now she’s lost in the Christmas display and I know where she is and I take some comfort in that. And as I see the Christmas display against the reflection of her glasses, I briefly imagine her running through the cliched winter wonderland, her thoughts free, sipping hot chocolate and making snow angels, singing about how she’s dreaming of a white Christmas, just like the ones she used to know.